Book 2 Chapter 3 Old Associations

Nekhludoff sat down by the little casement, and looked out into
the garden and listened. A soft, fresh spring breeze, smelling of
newly-dug earth, streamed in through the window, playing with the
hair on his damp forehead and the papers that lay on the
window-sill, which was all cut about with a knife.

"Tra-pa-trop, tra-pa-trop," comes a sound from the river, as the
women who were washing clothes there slapped them in regular
measure with their wooden bats, and the sound spread over the
glittering surface of the mill pond while the rhythmical sound of
the falling water came from the mill, and a frightened fly
suddenly flew loudly buzzing past his ear.

And all at once Nekhludoff remembered how, long ago, when he was
young and innocent, he had heard the women's wooden bats slapping
the wet clothes above the rhythmical sound from the mill, and in
the same way the spring breeze had blown about the hair on his
wet forehead and the papers on the window-sill, which was all cut
about with a knife, and just in the same way a fly had buzzed
loudly past his car.

It was not exactly that he remembered himself as a lad of 15, but
he seemed to feel himself the same as he was then, with the same
freshness and purity, and full of the same grand possibilities
for the future, and at the same time, as it happens in a dream,
he knew that all this could be no more, and he felt terribly sad.
"At what time would you like something to eat?" asked the
foreman, with a smile.